Lawson Fusao Inada
Lawson Fusao Inada (born 1938) is an American poet and academic, who served as poet laureate of the U.S. state of Oregon. Life Inada is a 3rd-generation Japanese-American (Sansei), born in Fresno, California. When he was 4 years old, Inada and his family were interned for the duration of World War II at camps in Fresno, Arkansas, and Colorado. Following the war, Inada became a jazz musician, a bassist, following the work of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Billie Holiday, to whom he would later write tributes in his works. Inada cites jazz and his time in the internment camps as his chief influences as a poet. He studied writing at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Oregon, and the University of Iowa. He began teaching poetry at Southern Oregon University in 1966. Quotations :::With new hope. :::We build new lives. :::Why complain when it rains? :::This is what it means to be free. :::: -- Lawson Inada, Japanese American Historical Plaza, Portland, Oregon Recognition In 1994, Inada's Legends from Camp: Poems won an American Book Award. He has received several poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. He also won the 1997 Stafford / Hall Award for Poetry. In 2006 Inada was named Oregon's 5th poet laureate, the first person to fill the position since William Stafford in 1989. He was succeeded by Paulann Petersen in 2010. Publications Poetry * Three Northwest Poets: Lawson Inada, Doug Lawder, Albert Drake (edited by Ralph Salisbury). Madison, WI: Quixote Press, 1970. * Before the War: Poems as they happened, New York: Morrow, 1971. *''The Buddha Bandits Down Highway 99'' (by Garrett Kaoru Hongo, Alan Chong Lau, & Lawson Fusao Inada). Mountain View, CA: Buddhahead, 1978. * Legends From Camp: Poems. Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 1993. * Just Intonations (illustrated by Robert Kostka). Ashland, OR: Graven Images Gallery Press, 1996. * Drawing the Line, Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 1997. Non-fiction * In This Great Land of Freedom: The Japanese Pioneers of Oregon (contributor). Los Angeles, CA: Japanese American National Museum, 1993. * Touching the Stones: Tracing One Hundred Years of Japanese American History (contribuotor). Portland: Oregon Nikkei Endowment, 1994. *Introduction to Unfinished Message: Selected works of Toshio Mori. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books, 2000. * A Matter of Conscience: Essays on the World War II Heart Mountain Draft Resistance Movement (contributor). Powell, WY: Western History Publications, 2002. Edited * Aiiieeeee! An anthology of Asian-American writers (edited with Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, & Shawn Wong). Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1974. * The Big Aiiieeeee!: An anthology of Chinese American and Japanese American literature (edited with Frank Chin, Jeffery Paul Chan, & Shawn Wong). New York: Penguin, 1990. * Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American internment experience. Berkeley, CA: Heyday Books / San Francisco: California Historical Society, 2000. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Lawson Fusao Inada, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Oct. 14, 2014. Audio / video *''What It Means to Be Free: Japanese-American internment and poetry'' (DVD). Ashland, OR: TTTP Productions, 2004. See also *Asian-American poets *List of U.S. poets References * Leonard, George. (1999). [http://books.google.com/books?id=ZzipfA-IyccC&dq=lawson+inada&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0 The Asian Pacific American Heritage: A Companion to Literature and Arts.] London: Taylor & Francis. 10-ISBN 0-8153-2980-6; 10_ISBN 978-0-8153-2980-0 * Niiya, Brian. (1993). [http://books.google.com/books?id=QZg6Ft_jvJ0C&dq=lawson+inada&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0 Japanese American History: An A-to-Z Reference from 1868 to the Present.] New York: Facts on File; Bonn: Verlag für die Deutsche Wirtschaft AG. 10-ISBN 0-8160-2680-7; 13-ISBN 978-0-8160-2680-7 OCLC: 26853950 Notes External links ;Poems *"Concentration Constellation" *Lawson Inada at Oregon Poetic Voices (2 poems) *Online Poems by Lawson Inada ;Audio / video *PBS: "Oregon Laureate Reflects on Japanese Internment," NewsHour. October 3, 2008 ;Books *Lawson Fusau Inada at Amazon.com ;About *Lawson Fusao Inada (1938- ) at Modern American Poetry *Oregon Poet Laureate Official website Category:1938 births Category:Living people Category:Writers from Oregon Category:People from Fresno, California Category:American writers of Japanese descent Category:Japanese-American internees Category:Southern Oregon University faculty Category:People from Ashland, Oregon Category:American poets of Asian descent Category:Poets Laureate of Oregon Category:20th-century poets Category:American poets Category:English-language poets Category:Poets Category:American academics Category:American poets of Japanese descent Category:Japanese-American poets